


25 kisses

by sevsgirl72, siggen1



Category: British Comedy RPF, Would I Lie To You? RPF
Genre: Ficlet Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:59:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 16,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4422299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevsgirl72/pseuds/sevsgirl72, https://archiveofourown.org/users/siggen1/pseuds/siggen1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>25 kisses - 25 stories</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Good morning" kiss

**Author's Note:**

> 25 unconnected ficlets, inspired by the [“25 kisses” fic request post on Tumblr](http://khirsahle.tumblr.com/post/110478709305/and-done-sorry-i-cant-take-any-more-more). Odds written by siggen1, evens by sevsgirl72, vice versa for betas. It’s a whole inbred thing.
> 
> We do feel a little bad for writing RPF, and feel the need to stress that Lee and David (as well as other comedians that might make an appearance) in these stories are largely based on the public personas their namesakes choose to present. Tara and Victoria (and other wives/significant others) share nothing in common with the real people they reference except their names.
> 
> We'll be posting two ficlets a week, roughly, if we can keep our steam up. Story rating may change. Chapter ratings, as well as warnings, if applicable, will be in chapter notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: G
> 
> AU: David never met Victoria Coren

Lee wakes up early. Well, wakes up. He hasn’t slept much, really, tossing and turning most of the night. Now, grey light filtering in through the tattered curtains, he knows he’s got no chance of getting back to sleep. He sighs and stretches out on his back, folding his hands behind his head.

There’s a crack in the ceiling that he’s never noticed before - he supposes it might be the particular angle of crack-of-dawn-light that makes him notice it - and he follows it with his eyes to the edge, then down the wall until it disappears behind the curtains and, presumably, ends where it meets the window sill.

He’s always hated making Tara cry.

_She’d shouted, first, given him a right good bollocking, called him every name under the sun. He sat quietly by their worn kitchen table, taking it. Finally, exhausted, she sank down on the chair opposite him._

_“Is this it, then?”_

_He closed his eyes, grit his teeth._

_“Yeah.”_

_She cried. He stayed put, wanting to comfort her and knowing he couldn’t. Finally, she rooted around her handbag for some tissues and wiped her face. He stood, uncertain, grabbed the bag he’d packed before she came home._

_“I’ll be round tomorrow. Talk to the kids.”_

_She nodded, pulling her cardigan more tightly around herself._

_“I’m sorry, Tara.”_

_“Just go,” she said, looking anywhere but his face._

David rolls over and mutters something, still lingering somewhere in the space between awake and asleep.

“Your place is a kip,” Lee murmurs softly. “There’s a crack in the ceiling.”

David opens his eyes and blearily looks up, then at Lee.

“So there is. How are you feeling?”

“Like absolute shit, but really fucking happy."

"That makes two of us. You know, first day in the rest of our guilt-ridden, wretched lives.”

He smiles wryly and Lee can’t help but smile back.

“In that case, good morning.”

He leans in and kisses David, picturing ten thousand more mornings like this. The rest of their wretched lives, he decides, will probably be alright.


	2. Kiss on the forehead

When Lee woke up his head was reeling thanks to the night’s revelries. Through the pounding headache he remembered only vaguely how the evening had played out. One thing, however, stood out with frightening clarity: He’d kissed David Mitchell.

“You’re impressively strong,” David slurred. Lee, only a fraction less pissed, supported him down the walk toward the front door.

“And you’re still posh when you're pissed.” Lee fumbled in his pockets for keys. Trying to keep his own feet, and David from ending up on his face, Lee managed the door and they tumbled in.

Performing some bizarre wobbling dance they poured into the lounge and he deposited David on the couch haphazardly.

“I’m in your house,” David said. He sat up crookedly on the couch and squinted up at Lee. “I’ve not been here... it’s nice.”

“A bit dark are you?” Lee laughed at David’s confusion and went for a duvet.

By the time he returned, David was out. He pulled the duvet over David and, without pause, gently kissed him on the forehead before winding his way up the stairs towards his own bed.

It wasn’t until the morning, when Lee was met by the sight of David in the kitchen, seated at the island counter being plied with coffee by Tara, that Lee even believed he’d done it, never mind wondered why he had.

“Didn’t think I’d see you up until at least midday,” Tara said, pushing a mug into his hand and a quick peck on his cheek. Lee stood there, eyes still locked on David as she said something about heading to work before disappearing.

“This is awkward.” David said in his usual way.

“I kissed you.”

“You what? No, you didn’t. I wasn’t that far gone,” David said quickly.

“I did, right on your head,” Lee poked David gently, in the same place he’d kissed him.

“Why?”

Lee shrugged.

“Right, well,” David absently rubbed his forehead. “Thanks for letting me occupy the couch for the night. My taxi is probably here.”

Lee led David out of the house, and stood at the door, as David slipped into the waiting taxi.


	3. Drunk kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T
> 
> Following the 2013 British Comedy Awards. If you feel like you're missing context, [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND7fh56assA) might help you out.

“Congratulations,” David said when Lee fell into step next to him on the way to the loo. If he didn’t mean it, Lee couldn’t tell from his profile. 

“Thanks,” he said. “How was my speech?”

“Embarrassing,” David replied with a conviction that made Lee cast an extra look to see if he was actually angry. “You might consider not drinking quite so much next year.”

“That’s rich coming from the man slurring in his beard.”

"Well, I wasn't the one telling the collected gaggle of journalists that we were in bed together deciding which of us should win before you _fucked_ me."

Lee grinned. "Funny that, wasn't it?"

"Not really," David said, but he was smiling. "Our wives will probably be livid," he added. 

"Probably," Lee agreed. "We'll need to get them flowers tomorrow."

"Yes." 

David held the door open for Lee. The bathroom was empty, and he turned to look at David properly for a minute. He was very much aware that they were both a sheet or two to the wind, but there was something in David's expression that intrigued him. He'd almost caught it a few moments before but it still just eluded him. 

Lee couldn't say who closed the distance, but David's arms folded around his shoulders and Lee carded his hands through David's hair. There was no precision, no rhythm, just open mouths and wayward tongues and traveling hands. David really was an excellent kisser, and Lee was hard when it was over - as hard as he could get when he was drunk on brown liquor, that is - leaning back against the wall and catching his breath. He opened his eyes reluctantly to find that David was watching him with something like triumph in his expression.

" _I_ would be fucking _you_ ," he said, and gave Lee's cock a squeeze through his trousers before he turned and walked away.


	4. Awkward Kiss

If anyone had asked David the previous morning how his next one would start, rolling over in bed to share a kiss with Lee Mack would not have been in his top ten guesses. It wouldn’t have even been in the realm of probable guesses. It was something of such minute possibility that David was sure he'd won a high stakes, low chance lottery of cosmic jokes.

David still felt drunk; uncoordinated and buzzed. Sure that it wasn’t actually Lee, that they weren’t in a hotel room, and that he wasn’t getting hard when Lee moaned into his kiss.

“Call time’s in an hour.” Lee said, grumbling in between kisses. “I need to leave.”

"And I don’t?” David held him back with a hand on his chest. “I am the other team captain, or did you really think it was all about you, Rob, and Rob’s small man in a box?”

“Nah, we’re the valets to be at your beck and call.”

The teasing was replaced by a swift scramble to dress. In between glances and touches as shirts were passed, David's thoughts began to spiral haphazardly without the advantage of Lee’s touches to distract him. What was Lee thinking about? Did he feel guilty? Were they guilty? How were they going to work together? Was Lee disgusted by him? Was this just a one off? The question made David shudder. What if Lee were to say 'yes', that it was fucking fantastic, but sorry mate, once was enough?

Maybe they'd been heading towards this since they first met. Perhaps now, with it out of their system, they could go back to their wives, content that they'd had a fantastic night and paid for it with this increasing assumption of Lee's indifference. David grew panicked as they went about their morning routines leaving him with far too much time to give each of Lee's acts and sounds meaning. The silent act of dressing, taking turns in the bathroom, reached a climax of floundering gracelessness as they headed for the door at the same time.

“Your shirt’s misbuttoned.” Lee pointed out, advancing on David as he reached for the handle.

David looked down, just as Lee went in for a proper goodbye. There was a shuffle leaving Lee blinking at him, taken aback when his advancing kiss landed on David's temple. David muttered an apology and scuttled out the door with Lee following close behind.

Exiting the lift together, the aftermath of their awkward goodbye left David blaming himself for what otherwise could have been a heated exchange or an “until the next time”. Instead he felt hollow. He recognized the distance that Lee abruptly put between them as a rejection. Sighing David gave Lee a curt nod before strolling out toward the studio, thinking Lee would follow after stopping for a fag. After all, it wouldn’t do for them to arrive together, or even at the same time. Too many coincidences and people began to talk. Not that this was going to be a thing. The morning had left him tense with anxiety, awkwardness and feeling more than a little rejected.

David turned the corner and was grabbed by a sure hand and laugh he knew too well.

"You're not going to be stuck on that through the taping." Lee pushed him against the side of the building and, in a replay of how their previous evening had begun, left David breathless and aching for more.

"Meet you back here tonight." Lee slipped the card key into David's pocket, taking a moment to tease David's cock, before flashing him a devilish grin and heading toward the taxi stand.


	5. Angry kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: M

Lee gets the breath knocked out of him when David pushes him back against the cold tiled wall of the shower, and doesn’t have time to catch it again before David’s lips are against his. He’s getting hard, which is impossible because he’s forty-six and twice within half an hour has been science fiction for years already. Still, David’s tongue is in his mouth, demanding and aggressive, and he leans back, allowing David to take control as his arousal grows.

They’ve been at it for months. Clandestine meetings in hotels, quick frenzied fucks in dressing rooms. They both expected to have gone off each other by now, but instead their fervor is growing, driving them together more often and more intensely. It’s only been twenty minutes or so since Lee came on the crisp white sheets, David fucking him into bloody oblivion, and now they’re snogging under a spray of warm water. David’s hand is on his cock and he’s definitely going to come again before they’re done here. He's actually going to come quite soon if he doesn't do something, so he pushes back against David, reversing their positions.

David clearly enjoys being in control over their encounters, but Lee has begun to suspect he might enjoy having control taken away from him even more. David melts under his demanding kisses, opening up to him and moaning when Lee maps the skin of David’s neck with his lips. David’s hand fumbles and finds Lee’s cock again. A jolt of pleasure makes Lee bite down on David’s shoulder, and David yelps, then groans appreciatively when Lee sucks the same spot in between his teeth again.

Lee captures David’s lips and takes hold of David’s cock. They move together in perfect rhythm under the falling water, and Lee fleetingly wishes it could last for ever. The pleasure builds and he rests his forehead on David’s shoulder, panting and moaning as David hits the right spots over and over until they both tumble over the edge within seconds of each other.

\---

“Fucking hell, Lee!”

Lee ducks his head out of the shower to see David studying his shoulder in the mirror. Fucking hell is right. A decent-size bruise is blooming darkly where Lee bit down, and David looks panicked. 

“What the fuck am I going to do about this?”

“Say you hit your shoulder on something?”

“There are _teeth marks_!”

Lee moves in closer, squints. “They’ll fade before Vicky sees, don’t worry about it.” He’s actually not sure they will, but handling panicky David is not part of his job description and he’s taking the easy way out if he can. 

David sighs, and goes back to drying himself. “I’m going crazy,” he mutters. 

“I think you’ll find you’ve gotten there already,” Lee mutters back. 

These encounters always leave him in a shitty mood, wanting more and wishing he didn’t. They were friendly before, though never close, but Lee’s beginning to hate David and he suspects the feeling is mutual. He craves David and can’t let go of this connection, this fucking chemistry that they have, and it's driving him out of his mind. 

He’s having trouble getting it up for his wife, lately. He can hardly function for Tara, but David can get him going several times an hour, and Lee hates it.

“Fuck you,” David says.

“You already did, David, about half an hour ago. Did your memory module delete that part already so you can go home and execute the 'model husband' program?”

David snarls, moves in on Lee. “Don’t leave fucking marks on me again.” 

Lee tries to tamp down his irritation, but David just keeps pushing all of his buttons. He's probably doing it on purpose, the contrary bastard, and Lee can't hold back. 

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do.” 

He breathes hard and wonders for a brief moment if they’re about to come to blows, before David suddenly lunges in for a kiss. It’s all teeth and dueling tongues and fighting for dominance, and when they break apart, they’re both half-hard again. 

“I’m running late,” David says breathlessly, half defiant and half apologetic.

“No need to stay on my account,” Lee replies as nonchalantly as he’s able. 

When the door clicks shut, Lee turns the shower back on and wraps a hand around himself. It's David he pictures in his mind when he comes.


	6. "I'm Sorry" Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T

David looked up at Lee from his seat at the pub table. His dark eyes were shadowed by hurt, but Lee still couldn’t say those two words —‘one and a conjunction,’ David probably would have corrected.

Lee had battled against the guilt seeping into his gut throughout the evening’s taping. He’d lied to David. It had been for the best intentions, to save the feelings of the people he loved, but he realised now, as he frantically searched him out at the pub, it had been a selfish move. Neither David or Tara had deserved this.

Lee had found him in the corner, flanked by Webb and Brydon, and though it took some coaxing - through a myriad of glares - David came with him, but only as far as the lane.

“I’ve still got a couple of more pints to get through,” David explained coldly, making Lee feel even worse.

David put several large strides of space between them. It was a good sign that he didn't continue walking, heading out toward the high street, but Lee wasn’t prepared to be put on the defensive immediately.

"How could you?" David seethed.

"We were already on the outs, it was headed for disaster. I just..." Lee tried, still unable to verbally admit any wrong.

"What, killed it? Stomped on the last embers of your marriage? That's not even what I'm furious about!"

Lee felt even smaller than he had when Tara had rung him that morning. He'd drug himself out of bed and into the kitchen, leaving David still asleep. It was the best he could do for a bit of privacy.

Leaning tiredly against the counter in David’s kitchen listening to Tara set out a schedule for him to pick up his things, he hadn’t realised he’d said it until after the phone was hung up and he turned to find David stood at the threshold of the kitchen staring first blankly, then horrified, at Lee.

“You left her.” David repeated. “You said, ‘I know, I left you.’ Lee...”

The anger began to set in then and David walked away while Lee stood there, phone still in hand, wondering how he’d managed to fuck this up in less than a week.

Lee couldn’t shake the image of how coldly David glared at him throughout the taping in much the same way Tara had the week before, that he’d sat her down, mid-afternoon as the kids played out in the garden and explained that they were over.

He’d gone to David’s that night, and every subsequent night, after telling him that Tara had ended it.

Now, hours after the taping, here in the deserted roadway, Lee felt like he was just about to have David walk away in the same way.

"It was best for her, and me."

"Oh Christ, Lee! It doesn’t matter why, maybe it was best, I don’t care.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” Lee said with a gruff petulance. It was done and over.

“It does, Lee, I’m complicit now in the breakup of a marriage! And your kids! Decades down the line, sitting in their psychiatrist’s office staring at ink blotches, it'll be my face they see. I’ll be that awful monster that stole their Dad. And T-tara...Tara is going to kill me when she finds out. But even with all of that...” David took a depth breath, released it and looked up at Lee with some resolve. “You lied to me, Lee. I never wanted to destroy what you had, and you knew that. It’s been so much better these past weeks without all the deception, but now it turns out even that was a deception.”

The words were back now, Lee was still trying to say them, but silence reigned between them instead. David threw up his hands and began to walk back to the pub.

Lee moved swiftly in front of David, stopping him from walking away. His hands grabbed David’s shoulders, halting his forward momentum, before his hands moved up until his palms were being tickled by David’s beard. Lee kissed him once, chastely. and again, and again until David felt pliant beneath him and accepted his kiss. Lee deepened it, pulling David closer to him, issuing the apology he just couldn’t seem to say.

When they pulled apart, both a little breathless, some of the warmth Lee was used to had returned to David’s eyes.

"Don't think that this is going to make everything better,” David said. “I'm not the only one you need to apologise to, you know, but I'd rather you not do it quite in that way.”

“How about I buy your next pint, take you home and find some more inventive ways to make it better?”

“We certainly can’t stay out here all night,” David grudgingly agreed.

Lee kissed him again before they went back inside. He was relieved that David had accepted some token of an apology, but knew that he would have to find a way to make it up to him. No more deceptions was a given. He’d need to come clean to Tara, eventually, and help clear things out between her and David, but those concerns were all for tomorrow. Tonight there were a couple of other things he could think of that might begin to smooth over David’s hurt feelings.


	7. "I've missed you" kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T
> 
> AU: David never met Victoria Coren

There are 136 flowers on the azalea bush in the garden, which is nearly ironic. David pinches off two in an attempt to complete the symbolism. He only really succeeds in making himself feel like an idiot, in addition to the sad fuck he already is for counting the bloody flowers of an azalea bush in the first place. 

He bought the house six months ago, and Lee has yet to spend a single night in it. The day before David moved in, Lee took off on his grand 134-show tour - hence the almost-irony of the number of azaleas. 

It's warm for April, and he's been writing in the garden all morning. Now, he’s meandering around trying to distract himself from writing and the taping tonight. It's the first spring since he was young that he's had a garden, and he feels a weird sort of duty to appreciate it. 

The estate agent was certainly very keen on the garden. It seemed to be a big selling point. In fact, while they were standing out here in the autumn chill, she'd confided in him with a falsely modest smile:

"I shouldn't be telling you this, but it's such a funny coincidence: _Lee Mack_ is actually also considering a bid on this house! I showed him around here yesterday. You know, he has children, so the garden's a big selling point for him." 

He feigned the appropriate amount of astonishment, chuckling awkwardly. She leaned close, conspiratorially:

"It's a divorce, apparently. Sounded like they’re trying to keep it quiet. But you know him, don’t you, so you probably knew that."

David half-nodded uncomfortably and changed the subject. 

They've seen each other once, over Christmas, in Lee's rented flat. When Lee's back in London for a night or two every ten or fifteen days, his kids take priority and David understands.

They text every day, talk on the phone most nights. When Lee asks him to, even though David feels desperately self-conscious, he talks dirty and listens to Lee moaning on the line. When Lee has come, David's name on his lips, they hang up and David masturbates furiously until he comes, spilling over his fist, feeling disgustingly lonely. 

They start filming a new series of Would I Lie To You? tonight, so they'll see each other once or twice a week for the next while, and the tour will wrap up a few weeks after their final taping. It's the home stretch now, but that thought isn't giving David much comfort. 

When the tour is over, they're meant to move in together. There was a timetable to it all: Telling the children, David meeting them properly as their dad's boyfriend, preparing them for the public attention their dad is about to get for his personal life, moving in, slowly start showing their faces together in public. David's fairly certain the timetable has been shelved. Lee hadn't anticipated how tough the tour would be on the kids less than a year after the divorce. 

They’ve had a rough time of it, all of them, and Lee has been close to cancelling the rest of the tour more than once, so David waits patiently and doesn't ask. Mostly, he doesn't ask because he's afraid of the answer. He's afraid that one night, sitting in some nondescript hotel room, Lee will have realised that leaving his wife and taking up with David is actually fucking demented and David will be stuck alone, in a house he bought because Lee liked the bloody garden. 

"I didn't expect you'd take up gardening. You must _really_ miss me."

David whirls around, startled, to see Lee standing on the patio looking amusedly at the pinched-off azaleas in David's hand. David normally prides himself on his knack for a quick repartee, but seeing Lee knocks him off his game. 

"I thought you were coming straight to the studio."

Lee shrugs, grinning.

"I got an earlier flight." 

David nods, dropping the flowers. The azalea’s irony, or lack thereof, can go fuck itself. 

"Do you realise," Lee says, still with that smile on his face, as David approaches, "that we haven't seen each other since Boxing day?"

"I am very, _very_ much aware," David says as he closes the rest of the distance between them. 

It's some time before they come up for air, resting their foreheads together, breathing heavily in each other’s space. 

“I’ve missed you,” Lee murmurs. 

“I’ve missed you too. Are you staying here tonight?”

He tries to be casual, but he’s pretty sure the neediness bleeds through. 

“If you’ll let me.”

“Good,” he sighs and kisses Lee again. 

“I’m seeing the kids tomorrow morning before I fly back up to Scotland,” Lee says, breathlessly, a while later. “I thought maybe I could bring them round here, if you’re not busy?”

“I’m not busy,” David replies. “Bloody fucking terrified, though.”

“Don’t be. We’ll be fine.”

David believes him.


	8. "Goodbye" Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: M

David sat in the small antechamber wondering how a cunt like himself got so fucking lucky. And, dressed as he was, he was sure every person waiting out in the hall would think the same as he stood at the alter. 

He checked his watch. Twelve more minutes. David rose to look himself over in the mirror, smoothing out the wrinkles on his trousers, pulling down his jacket. A complete cunt, but that didn't matter; this wasn't for him.

David heard a slight scuffle coming from outside the door.

"What the fuck are you doing back here?" David could clearly hear Rob say through the closed door, but the reply was too soft and muffled for him to hear who he was talking to.

David flung open the door to find Rob and Lee standing there in their best suits, locked in a cold, strange standoff. Rob looked ready to drag the other man away, but Lee’s hands were up in the universal sign of 'I come in peace'.

David frowned at Lee, but waved for him to come in and nodded towards Rob. “It’s alright, just give us a minute.” 

Rob looked like he wanted to say something like ‘a lot can happen in a minute’, or ‘is that all it takes, a minute’ - well really, David doubted both - but he stood aside, eyeing the pair as they went inside.

David closed the door behind Lee and they were alone.

“I’m really happy for you.” Lee said. “Victoria’s done you good.”

“Thank you.” David said, though he doubted Lee’s sincerity. The way Lee was staring at him made him feel exposed and uncomfortable.

The last time they were this close the room wasn't much larger. Throughout the taping of an episode the previous spring, David had been buzzing with nervous energy. The moment they were alone in his dressing room and the door closed, he'd pushed Lee onto the sofa. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence after an amazing episode.

David kissed Lee bruisingly, letting himself be pulled him down on top, and Lee moaned, grinding their hips together. David fumbled at the buttons of Lee’s shirt, needing the feel of skin, heat and more Lee. As soon as it was unbuttoned David shoved his tongue in Lee’s mouth, pressing him further into the couch. Lee groaned as David’s hands came into contact with bare skin and hands began to tug at his belt, unfastening the trousers underneath. Lee mirrored his movement until they were grinding together, skin on skin, licking, biting, kissing and palming each other to completion.

"We have to stop." David said after a minute, righting himself to sit beside Lee and trying to catch his breath. They were both disheveled, awash in a post-orgasmic haze. "I'm asking Victoria to marry me. Tonight. I can't...we can't keep doing this. I mean her...Tara...what were we ever thinking?"

Lee and David had barely spoken since that evening, months earlier, but David had a difficult time not thinking about it now that they were so close, and Lee looked so good in his suit. 

Lee gestured David closer. Though he didn't know what to expect, David didn't hesitate to obey, but instead of the old intimacy, Lee turned him to face the mirror. The met each others gaze in the reflections, and Lee pressed in close behind him. 

"It's the truth," Lee's voice ghosted across his ear as he reached his arms around David and began to fix his tie. "I am happy for you, but I'm going to miss you... I do miss you."

Lee finished the double-windsor and let his hand rest on David’s chest for only a moment before walking toward the door.

Lee didn't even reach the handle before David spun him around, bodily forcing him against the door, and kissed him with a rushed, biting finality.

"David..." Lee said breathlessly as David took a large step backward and away from him.

"I just...I'll see you at the reception." David knew it sounded lame, but Lee nodded at him and left.

Lee took his place next to Tara in the pews and moments later David went to stand in front of the altar, Rob beside him, waiting for Victoria to appear.


	9. "War's end" kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T
> 
> AU: David never met Victoria Coren
> 
> Warning: Lee's kids are in this one. If that makes you uncomfortable, the writers kindly suggest you skip this chapter.

David has just ordered dinner for the both of them when Lee comes round to his. 

“Wednesday afternoons and every other weekend,” he says before David can say anything. Lee pours himself a glass of David's whisky without asking, empties it in two swallows, pours another one and takes the bottle with him to the sitting room. 

David follows him in and sits down opposite, saying nothing. He’s not sure what he could say, really. Lee and Tara have been in mediation for months, trying to come to some sort of agreement. Wednesday afternoons and every other weekend means Lee gave in, finally. David hates Tara for doing this to Lee, and hates himself for being so relieved while Lee is so miserable. 

He’s always liked Lee’s children, and little Millie has taken to him like a particularly favoured uncle, but the boys fucking _hate_ him. It isn’t odd at all, considering the circumstances, but it still makes David awkward and deeply uncomfortable. If they had ended up with the children living at Lee’s in alternate weeks, David doesn’t think he could withstand it. The guilt he carries around for having broken up a marriage and a family is sharp-edged enough without a ten- and an eight-year-old sullenly having their tea with him every afternoon, casting accusatory looks while Lee goes into comedic overdrive trying to defuse the tension. He hasn’t said anything, but he suspects Lee knows it all too well. 

“I’m sorry,” he says into the glum silence that has descended on the flat. 

“Yeah,” Lee says, emptying his glass and pouring another . 

David gets up and puts the bottle away. Lee gives him a withering look, but doesn’t say anything. 

"At least now it's over," David offers when he sits back down. "And it's not like this is written in stone. You could revisit it next year, or the year after."

"And in the mean time, my kids are growing up without me there."

Lee gets up and takes out the bottle again, silently daring David to say something about it. He's more than halfway to rat-arsed by the time the food gets there, and David eats chicken korma by the kitchen table alone.

Two days later Lee comes over again, and David only needs to take half a look at him to see something's wrong. David knows that it rarely does any good to push, so he doesn't ask. Lee stalls through dinner, two episodes of House of Cards and sex that feels desperately perfunctory. It's only when they've settled down to sleep Lee sighs deeply into the semi-darkness. 

"We talked to the kids today, sorting out the details."

David doesn't reply, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Thing is, the boys won't come if you're..." Lee trails off uncomfortably, and David feels his heart sink. 

"That's not unexpected," he says, because it isn't. "We'll work something out. We should probably put off moving in, for starters." 

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I mean," Lee says, rolling over on his side to face David, resting his head in his hand, "that I want us to move in together like we've planned. That’s the whole reason for all of this, that I want to be with you. They'll come around eventually, and in the meantime we'll work something else out."

David looks at the dark outline of Lee's silhouette and loves him so much it hurts. 

\---

David is just about to go when he hears the children shouting outside. He's usually able to get ready and out of the house in the hour or so it takes Lee to pick them up and come back home, but he was writing and forgot himself. He briefly considers sprinting out the back way to avoid the whole thing, but decides to get a fucking grip and act like an adult. 

He can tell immediately that something has changed. Arlo, who in a worrying turn of events has grown something like four inches in the months since last time David saw him, comes into the kitchen first. He nods at him, saying "David" in a sort of greeting. 

"Arlo," David replies, nodding back. "How are you?" 

"I'm alright," Arlo says, and the whole thing is such an unprecedented display of civility that David lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. 

"I was just going," he says and gets up. 

"Listen, you don't have to leave because of us," Arlo says quickly. 

"Yeah," Louie says, appearing in the doorway. "David," he says, nodding like his older brother. It looks about right on a thirteen-year-old and deeply precocious in a boy who's only almost eleven. David bites down on his amusement and replies in kind.

He looks over Louie's shoulder at Lee, who is gesticulating in a way David takes to mean that he has no fucking idea what's going on, but will David please go with it?

The mystery unravels a few hours later while Lee is putting Millie to bed. Louie is inside playing a video game and Arlo sits down next to David out on the patio and casually - much too casually - asks a question about one of his and Rob's old sketches. Right. David might have guessed. A classroom full of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds have discovered Mitchell and Webb on YouTube and a relationship with David is currency to Arlo. Louie has come around alongside him because the only thing a ten-year-old boy ever aspires to be is his thirteen-year-old brother. It's pathetic, but after almost two years of Wednesday afternoons spent in pubs and alternate weekends walking on eggshells or sneaking in and out of his own house, David will take it, so he answers Arlo’s questions and promises he can meet Rob sometime.

“I still sort of hate you,” Arlo says stubbornly, looking out at the garden that's still strewn with Millie's toys.

“I know,” David replies.

“But Dad really cares about you.”

“I really care about him too.”

Arlo nods solemnly. "Alright."

"Alright."

 

When David tells Lee about it over beer after the boys are in bed, Lee vacillates between amused and angry, unable to pick just one.

"The little wanker," he proclaims, managing to sound both incredulous and impressed.

"Don't," David warns lightly.

"He's been treating you like you don't exist for two years and now he wants to show you off as his dad's boyfriend because his mates like Sir Digby?"

"You're just jealous he's not into Not Going Out anymore."

"Shut up," Lee smiles over the edge of his bottle.

 

Tuesday night, a few months of tentative civility later, Lee spends half the evening on the phone with Tara. 

"The kids want to spend more time here. Alternate weeks. We're signing a new agreement next week."

He looks younger, like a weight has been lifted. He smiles, wider than David has seen for ages, and sweeps him into a deep kiss. 

"Thank you," he says when they break apart. 

"It's hardly anything to do with me," David protests, and Lee rolls his eyes like David has said something particularly daft.

"Thank you for sticking it out, you twat."

David kisses him again.


	10. Seductive Kiss

This wasn’t the same David he’d watched from across the studio several weeks a year, for nine years. The David that aggrandized his poshness into comical, but digestible chunks. This also wasn’t the David he got pissed with at the pub after the final taping of the series.

Of course, both those Davids were parts of the one currently navigating around the back wall to avoid the crowd. It was an uncomfortably packed post-premiere party and from his vantage point, Lee could see that David was heading toward the rooftop garden.

This was the David that, after spending several weeks a year, for almost nine years, across a studio, in pubs and having dinners with their respective, now ex-, wives, Lee had decided was the one he wanted.

It wasn’t chance that had them both in attendance tonight. Lee had all but made sure that David had shown up, and now it was his chance.He wanted David alone, somewhere they were both a little off their footing, somewhere completely outside their comfort zone, because maybe then it wouldn’t seem as barking mad as his brain kept telling him it was.

Since Tara had left, it had only been David for him, but at first that seemed such an impossibility, not only because David married Victoria, but the fact that neither of them had ever, as far as he knew, had even the most remote passing interest in another man.

Over the course of the last series however, that began to change. Lee could swear that David’s eyes caught his own with a blush more often in the studios, and some of their pub nights had taken on a awkward electric ambiance. Sometime Lee would catch Brydon looking between David and himself, a question so obviously on the tip of his tongue, and Webb had stopped by his dressing room on his way out of the studio one evening with a warning glare, and an off-handed “be sure”. Sage advice. He was sure, but it all rested on David’s reaction.

Lee excused himself from his conversational circle, straightening the jacket of his tux, and made for the same set of doors he’d seen David slip out of.

Stepping out into the cool June evening, Lee couldn’t see where David had gone to. He was slightly unnerved by the stretch of garden six stories above the street. It didn’t seem right to see the London skyline from such a bizarre angle, but it wasn’t the skyline that was unnerving him tonight.

There were a few stragglers on the rooftop, some looking to have a fag and continue getting pissed in their finery, others looking for a more quiet place for a chat, but David was no where to be found. The garden was massive and after surveying the roof-top, there was a moment when Lee thought that perhaps David had left the party, that he’d missed his chance.

As he was about to turn back in, Lee spotted someone at the far end, just barely visible through the lush foliage. He knew it was David, even from this distance. Walking with a surety he most certainly wasn't feeling, he knew this may be his only chance.

Lee sidled up next to David on the bench. It was a secluded corner that isolated them from the party.

"Not the same, is it? Us being all gussied up." Lee plucked at the lapel of his tux.

"It is rather strange," David said. "Being able to look at your shirt and not immediately be reminded of a garish sofa."

Lee gave him a sly glare, but couldn't help smiling: "At least I don't look like a penguin."

David laughed and, for the first time that evening, Lee saw him visibly relax.

"You know how much I hate these things."

"I usually do too,” Lee looked directly at David. “Not so much tonight. Not now anyways."

"Lee..." David said warily. It was a tentative, shakey warning, but it was the affirmation Lee needed. He hadn't been imagining the looks or the blushes, or the electricity he felt being this close.

Lee leaned in.


	11. "I almost lost you" kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: G
> 
> AU: David never met Victoria Coren

“Lee had a heart attack yesterday.”

David’s world screeches to a halt as he grips the phone tighter. He stammers something, not sure it’s even a word, but Rob keeps talking over him anyway.

“He’s alright, Tara said he’s resting comfortably and he’s going to be absolutely fine."

He knows he should be asking why Rob felt this was deeply important information to impart specifically to David, why Rob says all of this with such urgency when Lee’s going to be fine. He knows he should, to maintain the pretense that there’s nothing more than cordial collegiality and friendly acquaintanceship between himself and Lee, but he’s still trying to process it all. They know that Rob knows, of course, and he knows they know that. They all extend each other the courtesy of pretending nobody knows shit, and David is aware he should be keeping up his end. Rob’s frantic tone of voice suggests he isn’t holding on to the artifice any harder than David is at the moment, though.

“Do you…” He blinks, tries to formulate a question. “Do you know which hospital he’s at?” 

"Charing Cross," Rob says. "Tara said we'd be alright for a visit this afternoon. I'm at the BBC, I'll swing by and give you a lift." He doesn’t leave room for discussion. 

They drive to the hospital in silence. Once in a while, David hears Rob draw a breath as if to say something, but every time he lets it out again slowly, not a word spoken. They pick up Rob’s Claire on the way. She slides into the back seat and squeezes David’s shoulder. David wonders idly if Rob’s told her, and who else he might have told. The thought should make him panic, but he can't focus on anything before seeing Lee. 

At Charing Cross they find the cardiology ward and ask their way to Lee's room. Tara looks up when they enter, flowers in hand. Claire immediately rushes over and envelops her in a hug, Rob following closely behind. 

David comes to a halt right inside the door, and can't tear his eyes away from the bed. Lee is pale and looks weak and sort of small, but he smiles at David, holding his gaze steadily even as he murmurs an answer to Rob's greeting. Then Tara says something and his attention shifts to her and the Brydons. David inches closer. He kisses Tara's cheek, guilt burning black in his stomach, and hands over the flowers Claire insisted they stop for on the way.

"Tara, love, you look exhausted," Rob says after a bit. "Why don't you and Claire go down to the cafeteria for a cuppa? Mitchell and I will handle this one for a bit." He gestures at Lee, who nods. 

"He's right, luv. You could use a little break."

After they leave, Rob touches Lee's shoulder and looks him in the eye. 

"I'm glad you're alright," he says, in that uncomfortably earnest manner he sometimes has. Then, to the room at large: "I am going to the loo."

At the door he stops briefly and adds, without turning around, almost as an afterthought: "I'll probably be a while."

David wonders, in the part of his mind not busy cataloguing alive, pale, tired, weakly, _alive_ Lee, what good he's done to deserve a friend like Rob. Or what ill, possibly. 

"I can never decide if he's a saint or the devil," Lee says, and David laughs.

“I was thinking the same thing.” 

"I'm probably going to conk out again pretty soon, so you should kiss me now while I'm conscious."

Lee's eyes twinkle playfully, and David's chest twinges. He leans in and kisses him, trying to reign in his galloping emotions. Lee's lips are dry and slightly chapped, but they part easily under David's. It's tender and soft and careful, a long way from their usual biting, desperate kisses.

When David pulls back, he sinks into the chair by the bed. 

"When Rob said 'Lee’s had a heart attack'..."

He trails off, unsure what he meant to say. 

"I'm sorry you had to hear it from Rob," Lee says. "It was the only way I could think to get word to you before the Mail printed my EKG."

"If you think how I heard is what's bothering me right now you are seriously overestimating my capability for grudge-holding."

Lee smiles wanly, his eyelids drooping. 

"I thought you were dead," David says, looking at the floor. "For three fucking awful seconds I thought you were gone."

He doesn't reply, and when David looks back up Lee’s eyes are closed and his breathing even. David squeezes his hand experimentally to check if he’s really asleep. Lee squeezes back faintly, and David feels tears pressing at the corners of his eyes. He isn’t sure how long he sits holding Lee’s hand, watching him sleep, but he’s jolted out of his reverie when he hears Rob talking to Claire and Tara right outside the door. 

 

He is cajoled and bullied by turns into having dinner at the Brydon house, after which Rob insists on driving him home. They drive in silence, again. David stares out the window and wonders when he’ll see Lee again. 

When Rob pulls up outside his building, David clears his throat. 

“Thank you. For…” He flounders. Forty minutes in the car and he couldn’t have spent a single one of them planning what to say at this moment? “For today.”

Rob is quiet for a long time. “You’re welcome,” he says finally. 

David is about to open the door when Rob continues: “How long has it been now? About a year?”

He sits back in his seat, doesn’t look at Rob. 

“Yes.” 

“It isn't any of my business --”

“No, it isn't.”

“-- but you love him.”

He looks up at Rob in surprise, and Rob smiles wryly. 

“I’m not an idiot, David. I see the way you look at him.” He pauses, licks his lips. “The problem is, you’re not the only one who looks at him like that. And he’s wearing _her_ ring.” 

“I know.”

“There’s a very good chance this will all end in heartbreak.” 

“I know that too.” 

“The two of you need to decide what it is you’re doing here, David. You’re steering towards the skids.” 

David doesn’t reply, torn between a profound desire to bolt out of the car and a bubbling, treacherous urge to stay and actually have a conversation about this with Rob, who might understand. Finally, Rob sighs. 

“But it isn't any of my business.”

“No,” David agrees, mildly disappointed, “it isn’t.”

“Peter and Ruth said we can push production about a month without messing with the airing schedule. If Lee's not ready, there'll be a discussion about postponing the series.”

David reaches for the door again. “The start of April, then, probably?”

Rob nods. “I’ll see you.” 

“You too.” 

David watches Rob's car as he drives off.


	12. Kiss on the Nose

They were late.

Lee checked his watch as he stood on the bottom step, waiting for David. It was quarter after, and they should have left a half-hour ago. Lee had learnt early on to account for David’s need to check the locks, the windows, and the stove several times before walking out the door. It was something so David that he accepted, and was somewhat endeared to, but it had been getting worse. Ever since he’d officially moved in, it was taking a little longer to check the windows, and there were a few extra flicks of the lock. Today, however, was the first time they’d actually be late because of it.

It was more difficult to see it as endearing now. It wasn’t only David being David, there was something more and something that Lee could only assume had to do with himself and their new living arrangements. Despite everything they’d been through together - divorce, the end of their show, and now a meeting with the BBC to, hopefully, greenlight another show - how could something so normal like moving in together cause this?

David finally appeared at the top of the stairs, and Lee watched as he shut the door behind him, then pulled and pushed, and pulled and pushed, violently. Then did it again. And again.

Lee knew where this was headed, he was worried David was going to wrench his arm if he continued, and if they had any hope of getting there at least fashionably late, he had to step in. Bounding up the stairs, he put himself bodily between David and the door, grabbed him by the shoulders, and kissed him on the tip of his nose.

The move stopped David up short from the anger that had initially flared at being interrupted in his door-locking ritual.

“Alright?” Lee asked.

David took a deep breath and nodded. Lee eyed him with some suspicion, but kissed him gently before ushering him down the steps and toward the high street to grab a taxi. Lee kept glancing at him on the sly. A sideways glance to make sure that David wasn’t going to want to go back and try the door again.

“You can stop that, Lee. I’m not going to flip out and go berserk because of the door.”

“Then why do it in the first place?”

David was quiet for a long while.

“There’s just more, now,” he finally explained. “More of us, in there. More to keep safe.”

Lee smiled at David, feeling pleasantly surprised and contented. He had been right - it had everything to do with him, but not in the bad way that he had assumed. It was simply another way that David showed how much he actually cared about this, about them. It was almost too bad that there were going to have to figure out some other way to deal with it. Though, he did adore the stunned look on David’s face when he kissed his nose.


	13. Kiss on the ear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place following the taping of episode 2 of series 1. You can watch it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql3yoGIBlOw), but the long and short of it is that Dominic Wood, demonstrating something that he ostensibly did to a girl at school, licked Lee's ear.

“That was the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

“If someone licking Lee’s ear is the funniest thing you’ve ever seen, you definitely need to get out more,” David told Barrowman as he returned with their next round and dropped down next to Lee in the booth. He was a bit tipsy, and leaned heavily against Lee’s shoulder for a minute. Lee found himself strangely missing the weight when David straightened himself.

Barrowman still couldn't stop laughing. "Your _face_ ," he croaked. "You looked like you were being violated!"

"I _feel_ fucking violated," Lee groused, but he was having trouble keeping a straight face. For all the things to be said about Barrowman, he had a humour that was damn hard to resist, especially after a pint or six. Seven, probably, now that he thought about it. 

“David! Kiss it better!”

David looked up from where he’d been fiddling with his phone. 

“What?”

“Kiss it better!”

David frowned. “What the fuck are you on about? Kiss what?”

“Lee’s ear,” Barrowman shouted, still snickering. “He feels violated, kiss it better!”

“Yeah, David, kiss it better,” Angus quipped from where he was languidly slouching in the corner of the booth, his arm around the shoulder of the production interns.

David really was a bit pissed, because Lee had expected him to go on a rant on the subject of forcing people to grope their colleagues, but instead he looked at Lee sheepishly, his cheeks taking on a bit of a tinge. 

"Go on," Lee challenged, more for the hell of it than anything else, testing the boundaries. Could he really make old repressed Mitchell do this?

He could tell from the determined look in David’s eyes the moment he decided to go for it. He leaned in, and for a moment Lee felt a hot puff of air on the shell of his ear, then a soft press of lips. 

David sat back again, and drank deeply from his pint. He was darkly flushed. The others had already moved on to talk about something else, but Lee couldn’t quite tear his eyes away as the colour slowly drained from David’s cheeks. 

It was probably the lager talking, but Lee had rather enjoyed making David blush and squirm. Hopefully, this thing they were doing would be a hit and he could keep doing it for years to come. 

He took a sip from his own pint and turned towards the others to join the conversation.


	14. Kiss on the Neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We send our apologies for the long wait between chapters. 
> 
> As a result of one of us being involved in an election campaign (and the subsequent post-defeat depression) and the other moving across the Atlantic, we were forced into an impromptu hiatus. 
> 
> But, we're back! 
> 
> To those returning readers, thanks for bearing with us, and to the new ones, welcome and enjoy!

Their post-show ritual was a lesson in clothes ripping, kissing, nipping, biting, David slamming Lee into his dressing room's door the minute it was closed and Lee reversing their position, pulling David toward the opposite wall or pushing him onto the couch.

Each riotous taping left them both on a high, and tonight David didn't give Lee any opening to gain the upper hand. Recklessly forcing Lee against the door David attacked his mouth with bruising kisses, nipping at Lee’s bottom lip before sinking to his knees.

Lee braced himself against the wall as David pulled down his trousers and pants, teasing his cock with a lick before taking it into his mouth.

“Fuck,” Lee hissed and grasped at David’s hair. David took him further into his mouth, and Lee began to pet and caress the curve of David’s head as his hips thrust to meet David’s ministrations. Watching his lover’s head move on him, the blissful pressure of pleasure drove him closer to the brink.

David looked up at Lee, meeting his eyes lustfully before gripping his hips and keeping them still, taking away any control Lee had in this encounter. Lee groaned and flung his head back, closing his eyes. Lee was so close to coming, pushing back against David’s hands that held him motionless. When David began humming slightly it was his undoing. Cursing colorfully, Lee came.

Lee sagged against the wall, watching David as he sat back on his heels, catching his breath, and pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket to wipe his mouth.

Righting himself, Lee helped David up and kissed him gently before turning David around to pull him flush against his chest. As he moved his kisses to David’s neck, Lee slowly undid David’s trousers, releasing his hard cock from the confines of his pants. Lee began slowly palming David’s cock, watching in the dressing room mirror as David began to lose the control he had initially taken, gripping at the arm wrapped around his chest and urging Lee with mumbled moans. Their eyes met in the mirror briefly before David pushed back into Lee’s chest, arching into him as he came.

Lee held David close, kissing him lightly on the neck.


	15. Kiss on the back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: E

David breathes out slowly. His eyes are pressed closed, but he's hyper-aware of everything his other senses are taking in. The sheets are starting to feel clammy where he's pressed into them, but the pillow is soft under his hips. His hips are protesting a bit at their widespread position, but he can take it. There is a slight scratch of pubes against the sensitive skin of his perineum, and he can feel the hitch in Lee's breathing and the vibration of Lee's body shaking slightly from the effort of staying still. Lee's hands on the small of his back are a gentle, steadying weight, keeping him grounded in the moment. Above them all: the burning, searing pressure of Lee's cock in his arse. 

This isn't something they do often. Usually, if anyone's being fucked, it's Lee spread out or bent over for David, eagerly inviting. David will press inside and hold himself still until Lee bucks against him and begs to be taken. David doesn't consider himself a very proficient lover, but he's patient and in possession of some measure of restraint, able to put off his own pleasure in order to tease and coax Lee higher and higher. Lee enjoys whatever David gives him, hard or gentle, fast or slow. He'll close his eyes, offer himself up and let David make him feel good. 

Sometimes, though, when they're curled together, he strokes David's hip, says "can I?" and lets his hand stray to caress David's buttock. David is always happy to let him. David prefers to be in control, but he can certainly appreciate the beauty - and pleasure - of relinquishing it. They're natural talkers, both of them, and normally their lovemaking is almost as verbose as the meals they share together. When they do this, however, when David is laid prone under Lee's attentions, they don't speak much. David because he genuinely can't string a sentence together when he's like this, Lee because he's sharply focused, single-minded in his pursuit of David's undoing. 

Lee isn't the most expressive of blokes, but he touches David's body with a reverence that speaks volumes, and the way his breath hitches when David relaxes and lets him in tells David all he needs to know. 

"You can move," he grinds out when he thinks he can just about handle it. The immediate sting has faded and he's starting to feel good. Lee's response is a shaky intake of breath. He moves his hands to David's hips and begins to pull out, a slow, delicious slide that makes David gasp and then moan when Lee pushes back in. The initial discomfort melts away in the space of a few moments, giving way to pleasure that flows warmly out into every part of his body. He grips the sheets and and groans as Lee settles into a rhythm. Pleasure ebbs and flows and builds, until David needs to come more than he has needed anything in his whole life. 

"Please," he groans, and Lee understands, like he always does. 

Lee leans forward, resting his hands on either side of David on the bed. The change of angle and pressure is exquisite, and David nearly sobs from the overload of sensation. Lee stills, leans his weight on his left hand and worms the right one in between David and the pillow, touching David's cock with a confident hand. It doesn't take much for David to come, gasping into the sheets. 

"God," Lee says hoarsely. 

He doesn't wait for a response, which is good because David is in no state to make one, resting his hands on the bed again and thrusting hard and fast, groaning quietly when he comes. 

"You are amazing," Lee says. He bows his head and presses a kiss between David's shoulder blades, before slowly extricating himself and going to get cleaned up. The ghost of Lee's lips on his back stays with David long after Lee's gone.


	16. Surprise Kiss

Perhaps it was Lee's aloof nature that drew him in. David was so much a foil to Lee's public persona that they shared with the world that when they were alone, he often felt like he was staring at a blank page.

No, not a blank page, Lee had too large a personality for that. It was more a large book written in invisible ink, waiting to be revealed.

David considered his attraction, watching Lee from the confines of a corner spot by the pub table. David watched Lee’s face light up as he cracked another joke that had Rob laughing, Rhod rolling his eyes and the rest of the guests from the day’s filming dissolving into fits. This was the Lee that everyone saw. It was this form of entertainment that Lee was born to do and while David loved to watch him perform and was proud to work with him, it was the Lee at home that he was enjoying getting to unravel.

They’d been living together for a couple of months now, but David still only saw that invisible Lee in small glimpses. A thoughtfully placed mug of tea waiting for him as he returned from a walk, Lee sitting in self-enforced silence writing the scripts for a new _Not Going Out_ series, listening from the hall as Lee tucked the kids into bed during their weekends with them. Of course, the jokes followed, and David would lose sight of him again as he’d laugh and Lee would kiss him before leading him to the bedroom.

David excused himself to the toilet while some of the others took to the street for a fag. It was destabilizing leaving the joviality of the group and getting lost in his insecurity. Looking at himself in the mirror, David couldn’t quite see what Lee saw in him. David never held back his opinions on anything, and most of the time, Lee sussed out what he was thinking before he could voice his ire about the latest round of Westminster cockups. He wasn’t anything that one had to hold up to a candlelight and wait for the words to blossom out from the heat.

David left the toilets and suddenly Lee was there kissing him and backing him into the wall of the small corridor.

“What, what was that?” David stuttered, his hands braced against Lee’s chest, pushing him away quickly.

“Don’t know, just been wanting to do it all night.”

“But we agreed. No displays in public.” David hissed.

“No one’s back here. Plus,” Lee grinned with glee. “They wouldn’t even believe it if they saw it.”

Lee walked away and back toward the group. He was right in some ways. David smiled, following him out. They’d not believe it of Lee, that is for sure. 


	17. Shy kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: G
> 
> AU: David never met Victoria Coren

They've tried, but they aren’t hand-holdy blokes, so they simply walk next to each other down the red carpet. They’re nominated for _Would I Lie To You?_ , so nobody bats an eye that they arrive together. Which is fucking shit, really, because the whole point is for people to bat an eye. 

_“Are you sure about this?”_

_“You’ve asked me that so many times I’m starting to wonder if you’re not sure.”_

_“I just... “ David sighed. “I want to make sure this is okay. I don’t want to force things too soon.”_

_“It’s been two years. Tara is as okay as she will be, and the kids know it’s coming. It’s time.”_

_“Alright.”_

They make it to their seats - next to each other, for once, a piece of magic by David’s agent - and wait for the show to start. They sit closer than they would otherwise, but besides Webb and Brydon, both of whom sit by their table and both of whom have already known about them for a year and know tonight's the night, nobody seems to notice. 

_“So, the BAFTAs.”_

_“The BAFTAs.”_

_“Arrive together, snog at an after-party with plenty of journos around...”_

_“I’ll mention you in my speech if I win...”_

_"We'll have a snog on stage if the show wins..."_

_"We most certainly won't!"_

_"If the point is to come out, why not just go big?"_

_"Because it's_ fucking _crass! And half the people there will think you're doing a bit!"_

_"Right."_

"And the BAFTA goes to... David Mitchell for Peep Show!" 

David looks bewildered for a split second, before standing up and buttoning his jacket. The rest of their table stands too, so Lee is suddenly right in David's space, applauding. David looks at him, smiles and leans in carefully, kissing him quickly and chastely on the lips before striding off to the stage. Lee is befuddled. For all his jokes about inappropriate snogs, he really wasn't expecting that. He realises this moment is going to be played over and over on YouTube for the foreseeable future, so he focuses on clapping and smiling and looking proud. (He is.)

David thanks the writers, the producers, the rest of the cast, Webb most of all. Then, he takes a breath. Lee knows he's rehearsed this, but David still looks nervous, which in turn makes Lee nervous. 

"I also want to thank my partner Lee --"

'Partner' is the word they finally agreed on after deciding that 'boyfriend' is fucking pathetic for two men in their mid-forties, while 'lover' manages to both be slightly disgusting and imply an extramarital affair that - for the record - has never taken place. 

"-- for his tolerance when I went a bit 'method' and walked around at home with a camera mounted to my head. I love you. Thank you."

Well, that was unexpected. They've said it in private, of course, but Lee didn't expect David, so eager to be careful and respectful of Lee's ex-wife, to break out that word right there on stage. Must be his nerves. David walks off and into the waiting den of journalists backstage. Lee wishes he could go with him, because he can feel dozens of pairs of eyes on him in the ballroom, can sense the intensity of the whispers around him. They are well and fucking truly out now. 

When David sidles back into his seat some fifteen minutes later, he immediately whispers an apology. 

"I haven't been so nervous on a stage in twenty years, I think. I didn't mean to --"

"It's okay," Lee reassures him, placing his hand on David's knee. "You were good." 

David smiles shyly, and Lee can't help but lean in for another kiss. 

"Besides," he adds, close to David's ear. "Now we don't have to have a snog at an afterparty, we can go home and have a snog in our bed."

A faint blush spreads on David's cheeks, and Lee turns back to watch the show, his hand still stroking David's knee.


	18. Exhausted parents kiss

Lee collapsed on the couch, finally certain that his three minions were in bed and asleep.

These were the routines that were never as traumatic when he and Tara were together. When he'd never be this exhausted after a couple of story books, and have the energy for those other nighttime activities. Not that David complained. With only every other weekend and some holidays, Lee had to soak up his time together with the kids. And though bedtime became an all encompassing ordeal of snuggles and left him too tired for anything else, he’d not change it for the world.

From his seat, Lee could see David through the window coming up the walk. Lee appreciated that David, though fully prepared to help out, made himself scarce most evenings when Lee had the kids.                       

He closed his eyes slowly, knowing David’s entire routine through sound alone: house keys on the keyholder, jacket off and on the hook, shoes aligned and placed directly below the jacket. He waited, but didn’t hear anything more than the few soft footsteps coming up behind him.

“Still alive, I see,” David said from above, looking down at his exhausted partner.

“Barely.” Lee couldn’t even open his eyes, though he felt David still looming and moving closer until all he felt was the warmth of another body and a soft kiss planted lovingly on his lips.

Lee smiled into the kiss and sighed contentedly.

 

 


	19. Sad kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T
> 
> AU: David never met Victoria Coren

"Look, David, either you're in this relationship or you're not."

That was exactly the sort of thing Lee hadn't intended to say when he thought about how the conversation should go, yet there it was and he was startled to realise he'd meant it. 

He expected David to harrumph and bluster and say: "Of _course_ I'm in, you fucking _idiot_!" and smile crookedly, traces of the argument melting away. What he hadn’t expected was David’s drawn-out silence, mouth set in a hard line. 

"Fine," David said finally. "I'm out."

"What?"

"I'm out. I'll go right now."

Lee followed him upstairs, still not sure he wasn't in the middle of some bit. David couldn't honestly mean it, could he?

"I hate to mention it," he said conversationally, feeling like he was standing in a surrealist play, "but this is technically your house."

David ducked out of the closet and dropped pants and socks in the open bag on the bed. 

"That hardly needs pointing out," he said tersely. "However, I don't need or want a whole house and your children love this place. We'll work it out, you can buy it off me or something."

Lee's head was spinning.

"How did we go from 'I love you but you're an idiot' to 'you can buy the house off me' in less than five minutes?"

David stopped cold, shirts in his hand. He looked endlessly sad. 

"I do love you. But this is the direction we've been heading for months, Lee, can't you see that? This has been wrong from the start."

"No, I can't see that, David, because I love you! The only thing wrong here - literally, my only complaint - is that you took on a huge film project without even consulting me. Which I don't think I was entirely unreasonable for expecting, considering."

"But that's not your complaint. At least not all of it." 

David sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, clutching a jumper.

"Your complaint is that I'm doing this with Rob, and that he is who I consulted with." 

Lee closed his eyes. Fucking Webb. David hesitated slightly before continuing:

"You're jealous of my relationship with Rob, and I suppose I can understand that. But you have to understand that Rob has been the person I've consulted over decisions like this for more than twenty years. That doesn't change overnight."

"I'm not asking you to change it, I'm asking you to let me be part of the fucking process!"

"I understand. It's just that..." David paused, searching for words. "I've been single for most of my life. Being part of a couple, sharing these decisions, it's a very new thing for me, and I've been trying, Lee, I really have. But you're right, either I'm in or I'm out." He shrugged desolately. "So I'm out. I can't do this."

"David..."

David stood, put the jumper in the bag and picked it up. 

"It's late. I'll go to Rob and Abbie's tonight and get a hotel tomorrow."

"You don't have to go, you could sleep in the guest room. I can sleep in the guest room, for that matter."

"No, I need to... This 'sudden, life-altering insight'-thing is a bit overwhelming, and I need to be... not here."

Lee followed him downstairs and stood in the living room door as David picked up and packed his Kindle, some notebooks, his laptop. There were a thousand questions whirling in Lee's mind, but he couldn't hold on to any of them long enough to ask, until he remembered what David had said upstairs:

"Do you really think we've been wrong from the start?"

"Yes. And I think we could have worked through it, but we haven't." 

He paused to get his phone charger from the socket and drop it in his bag, before he finally stopped and faced Lee. 

"I've been feeling off for long time," he said after a beat. "I think I've been afraid to verbalise it because we've both invested so much in this relationship. I broke up your marriage, for fuck's sake! There are paparazzi wherever we go, as if we're a bloody novelty show! There's a lot of pressure, and I haven't minded, because I love you, I really love you, but this --" he waved his hand between the two of them "-- isn't working."

"We can make it work."

"See, I don't think we can."

David closed the bag and Lee felt like he was free-falling. 

"I'm going to go now."

"Don't."

Lee clenched his jaw and looked down. Fuck. He hadn't cried in years, he wasn't going to cry because fucking Mitchell turned fucking tail on him. Then, fucking Mitchell was there, lifting his chin and looking into his eyes. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Lee's lips. Lee breathed in the scent of David and his body seemed to act on its own volition, feet stepping closer, hands coming up to clutch at David's shoulders, mouth deepening the kiss. 

Finally, David pulled away. 

"I'm so sorry, Lee," he said. Then he was gone.


	20. French Kiss

If they hadn’t been oblivious, locked in a heated moment, tongues and bodies warring against each other ‒ David moaning into a kiss as Lee unzipped his trousers to cup his hard cock with a hand ‒ it probably would have been worse.

But they hadn’t heard the door to Lee’s dressing room open, or caught Miranda’s jaw-dropped stare at seeing them together. There wasn’t much that could leave her without a witty repartée, but, as she closed the door quietly, she realised this had done it. She’d not seen that one coming. During the  taping the silence shed away and was overtaken by quips shot like arrows to rip through them both.

Miranda watched as David and Lee exchanged worried, guilty looks across the studio. They must have realised that she knew. When the director yelled cut, Lee turned to her as David joined them on their side of the studio.

“Alright, Miranda?”

“What do you think you’re playing at.” she hissed through clinched teeth. “You idiots! You have wives! Women who, evidently against their better judgment, have chosen to marry you, because they actually love you. And here you two are, getting your jollies in a fucking dressing room."

David paled looking chastised and worried. "W-what it is, Miranda ‒"

Lee stopped him with a hand and gestured toward Rob who was leaning against his desk chatting with an AD, but looking over at them with some curiosity.

"Right, my dressing room." Lee pointed the way and ushered the group off the soundstage.

When the three stood awkwardly inside the cramped quarters Miranda opened her mouth to speak, but Lee silenced her.

"We know. We're not  idiots," Lee said, standing slightly in front of David, staying close. "Do you think we don't both know that we're  lying, cheating bastards? But what else are we supposed to do? I...we..." Lee glanced back at David, floundering to find the words.

"And you." Miranda looked around Lee at David with narrowed eyes.

David was looking incredulously at Lee, at what his words implied, and Miranda saw it. This wasn’t just some fling for them. They weren’t simply a pair of randy bastards betraying their wives, they were agonising over this.

“Lee said it. And I can’t speak for him, but Victoria will know soon enough and we’ll go from there. But this,” David lay his hand on Lee’s shoulder. “This is...I pined for Victoria for so long. But this...this blindsided me. Us, really, I think.”

Lee nodded in agreement.

Miranda held up her hands, “I’m not the executioner, but Tara and Victoria... the pair of you are in for it when you do tell those two. And you better tell them, don’t let them walk in to find your tongues down each other’s throats and hands down the other’s pants.”


	21. Jealous kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T

"Never?"

"Never."

Lee was incredulous, but after shooting sixty-odd episodes of a panel show based around truths and lies he had gotten fairly good at recognising when David was being truthful, and it looked as though he really was. 

"You’ve never once shagged Webb?"

"Never," David confirmed, wriggling a little to rest his head on Lee’s shoulder.

"You two are right intimate around each other," Lee pointed out petulantly.

"We've been friends for more than twenty years, intimacy tends to follow." David was bemused, and paused for a minute. Then understanding seemed to dawn on him and he sounded scandalised: "You're jealous!"

"Too bloody right I am," Lee muttered, pulling David into a deep kiss. 

“Well, you certainly have no need to be,” David replied breathlessly when they broke apart. 

“You sure?” 

David rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’ve never fancied Rob, not that he’d be keen if I had, and you are the only man I have ever truly loved. Satisfied?”

“No,” Lee said, kissing him again. “Can’t you tell?” He tightened his arm around David’s shoulders and pressed himself against his thigh.

David snorted. “Cheeky. And quite cheesy, by the way, far from your best work,” he added as he snuck a hand down the front of Lee’s pants. 

“Everybody’s a critic,” Lee grumbled, leaning back against the pillow and sighing contentedly.


	22. Giggly Kiss

They’re both pissed.

David can tell in that hazy way you know you’re pissed, but don’t care, so you down another pint. Lee follows suit. When they decide to leave they amble their way between the pub table and as he almost trips over yet another chair, David feels fairly certain that it was a lot easier to get to their table at the back of the pub when they came in than it is getting out the door now.

They fall out of the pub and onto the street.

Holding on to each other to steady themselves, it is Lee that first stumbles into a wall, pulling David with him. They fumble against each other, trying to right themselves, but only succeed in getting more discombobulated.

They kiss.

It’s a strange sensation, almost sloppy and David’s beard tickles against Lee’s chin, but Lee can’t stop. He kisses him again and again, making him delightfully dizzy and excited at the bizarreness of what’s happening. When David pulls at his belt a delighted giggle bursts out of Lee’s mouth.

“Did you just giggle?” David slurs, nudging him away just far enough to look up at him in disbelief.

Lee shrugs, pulling David away from the wall and on toward his flat.  


	23. Last kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: G

David opened the door with a smile, and for a moment Lee felt dizzy with conflicting emotions. He allowed himself a few moments of the kiss he was caught into, then pushed at David’s shoulders. David drew back and looked at him, a frown forming slowly. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Tara confronted me last night."

David paled. “Shit.” 

“Yeah.” Lee rubbed a hand across his mouth. "I told her everything. She's hurt and angry --" he swallowed "-- but she's giving me another chance. For the kids. Provided, obviously, that we…" 

"Of course," David said. "How did she…?"

"A lot of little things that added up, she said."

David nodded. 

"I don't think she'll tell Vicky," Lee said

"Right."

"I mean, I can't be sure. But given that we're not…" He shrugged. "I think she wants to try to forget all about it."

"I suppose we ought to do the same --"

Lee snorted. _Good one, Mitchell._

"-- though I'm not sure how to," David continued.

“Yeah," Lee said. 

"This is good, though, right?"

"I think 'not divorced' goes in the column for good, yeah."

David smiled briefly. "Yes."

"I'll miss this, though."

David looked surprised. "Me too," he admitted softly after a beat. "We won't be seeing much of each other." He paused. "Maybe none at all?" 

"If Tara asks me to quit the show, I will," Lee said, answering the question David didn't ask. "She hasn’t, yet. We won’t know about another series for ages anyway.”

David nodded. "I suppose.”

"Right." Lee sighed, looking around. "I should go."

He took a half-step in and captured David's lips in a kiss. He tried to make it say "I'm sorry" and "I wish things were different" and "Goodbye”. When they parted, he drew a deep breath and opened his eyes. He tried to muster a cocky grin, but he had his doubts on how well it was working. 

"I'll see you around, David."

David's answering smile was small and lopsided. 

"I'll see you, Lee."

Lee didn't look behind him as he left.


	24. Returned from the dead kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter from me, Sevsgirl72. 
> 
> I started off on this venture with my dear Siggen1 last July, with a vague notion of loving this pairing, but being wary of RPS. What transpired though, in the midst of the most hectic year of my life, was something outstanding. We just finished a massive writing challenge, dude! Look at it! :D
> 
> All I can say my dear, is I could never have ask for a better writing/workshopping partner and smart, kick-ass woman, to have lept into this, and life, with and I hope we have many many years of fic-ing ahead. But even more importantly I couldn't have asked for a better friend. Love you, hon!
> 
> And to the readers - thanks for reading! Enjoy this last couple of chapters and thanks for sticking with us (well me, really - Siggen1's been done for ages - sorry ^^).
> 
> Cheers!

**24\. Returned from the dead kiss**

David set the invitation on the kitchen table and stepped away from it. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared at the name about halfway down the list. He’d not seen him in almost five years.

“David?” Victoria asked, setting her bag and keys down on the counter to wrap her arms around him from behind. “Are you alright?”

David tore his eyes away from the invitation, and turned in her grasp, giving her a quick kiss when they were face to face. “I’m fine. It’s just ... the invitation to the BAFTA luncheon.”

“You really hate those things, don’t you?”

“Hate is a strong word.”

“Strong, but the right one,” Victoria kissed him and let go. “You’ll be alright.”

David lay awake in bed that night, listening to the soft breathing of his wife. His mind kept drifting toward the name on the invitation. It was completely possible they’d not see each other at this thing. There was always a mass of people being ushered along to seats and the main photo-op, leaving only time for a quick handshake hello.

Perhaps Lee wouldn’t even want that. David had been the one to kill it after all, before it had even started. David scoffed at himself. It. Even his mind was turning their fumbling trysts into something more than it had been. Kisses in dressing rooms, a couple of drunken fumblings in Lee’s car, ending with one night. David had walked away. How much did that really mean? To either of them?

“David, stop worrying about the luncheon,” Victoria mumbled as she turned over and wrapped an arm around his chest, holding him tightly for a moment. “It’s not for months.”

“I’m not worrying.” David patted her arm and shuffled himself in a better position to curl his arm around her and pull her close. He lay a gentle kiss to her forehead. As Victoria drifted back to sleep David tensely remembered what he’d given up, the feelings and the memories, so he could have this. Because this, Victoria, was what he wanted, right?

***

The trio waited in casual conversation for midnight and the phone call.

“They’re certainly waiting for the last possible moment, aren’t they?” Rob checked his phone again, making sure it was on and the ringer loud.

“Squeezing all the pennies first to see how much blood they can get out of them,” David said, His sarcasm was empty of any real venom and Lee looked at him pointedly. Neither wanted to be there.

The verdict on Would I Lie To You’s tenth series was to be handed down this evening during the studio’s annual pick-up fest. The three colleagues knew the game though; new panel shows were abound this year and despite outstanding ratings and more awards, the want for something new made their fate rocky at best. Having been together for so long now, Rob had said it seemed only right for them to find out together. They sent their wives for an evening out and Rob invited them round, to stew in this strange limbo until they received the verdict.

David couldn’t fault Rob for his good intentions, it was thoughtful, but David was more inclined to to worry about Lee’s rumpled state. One that he himself had put him in. David wondered how Rob could have completely missed the obvious love-bite on Lee’s neck, and how his own lips look thoroughly kissed - not to mention the slight beard burn. David rubbed at his cheek absently. Was Rob really that oblivious? Or was he just being polite? And as Rob continued his fumbling with his mobile, David began to suspect it was all in order to ignore these obvious signs.

Memorising the way Lee was fidgeting with his bottle of beer, the way his shirt collar was askew and David was beginning to feel that the weight of the decision coming down from the BBC was one that would completely change their lives. The end of the series meant the end of this dance they’d been doing throughout the filming of the last series. Though the conversation still flowed between them all, it was all very much humouring Rob. David would rather be alone with Lee, to finish what they had in the hall of David’s flat before coming over.

He could still feel the edge of arousal from the moment that Lee had grabbed at his scarf and slowly pulled until David was flush with his chest. Lee was grinning like the cheshire cat when he kissed him. David melted into him until the honking from the taxi broke them apart.

The shrill ring from Rob’s mobile breaks David out of his thoughts. They all stare at it before Rob leaps into action putting it on speaker.

“Alright Gail,” Rob answers. “You’re on speaker with Lee and David.”

“Hi gents,” Gail begins. “I’ll cut to the chase. I’m sorry, Rob, Lee, David, they are adding some new shows and can’t find the right time slot for us.”

David and Lee answered with understanding; shows had their run, it couldn’t have continued forever.

“You’ll get calls later in the week about your contracts. I’m sorry. Rob, if I could speak to you briefly?”

Rob took it off speaker phone and left to talk with Gail in the kitchen. David and Lee sat there staring at each other.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” Lee said.

“Yes, I guess it is.”

“We’ll still -”

“I’ll see -” They both started. David was about to let Lee continue when Rob returned.

There was a quick discussion about a possible final Red Nose Day sketch before they all got up to get ready to leave. Rob showed them both to the door with few words of comfort delivered in the deep voice of Richard Burton while grabbing them each by the hand and giving them hugs.

Leaving Rob’s, David and Lee shared a taxi, neither sure what to say next. They’d gone to David’s flat first and Lee got out with him, walking to the door.

“My tour starts next week,” Lee finally said, shoving his hands in his pocket and shrugging his shoulders. “It’ll be a couple of months till I’m back in London, proper like. Maybe -”

“This is one of those ‘nice knowing you’, ‘see you around’ moments, isn’t it,” David started. “How did we get to this point so soon?”

Lee visibly relaxed as David’s natural ranting took the pointed awkwardness of unsaid things away. That things were still the same.

“It’s not one of those moments,” Lee said, grinning. He grabbed David just inside his door and repeated their interlude from earlier in the evening.

“Come to one of the shows.” Lee said, breaking away from David.

David nodded and Lee smiled before leaving to meet the waiting taxi after one final devastating kiss. David collapsed against the wall, hard and flushed with want, and angry at himself for letting Lee leave so early.

When Victoria came in an hour later, pissed and jolly after her night with the ladies, David listened to her as she laughed about the night’s events. She threaded her fingers with his as they sat comfortably on the couch before heading to bed. Victoria nuzzled into his neck, kissing him. There was no urgency, no pulling or grasping as there always was with Lee. None of the battling back and forth out of pure need and lack of time. Just the pair of them, Victoria and himself, and the rest of their lives.

***

Two months later David was on a train. Two months of hurried texts and a phone call here and there. David watched the countryside and towns flash by a blur of summer green and row houses aptly painted the picture of how he was feeling, he was a tangle of eagerness and jubilance, but apprehensive at the practicality of it all. What the hell was he doing?

Then there was Lee, waiting for him just beyond the platform barriers. David could see he was trying to appear nonchalant and inconspicuous, but a couple of people obviously recognized him. Just as David crossed through the barrier, someone approached Lee and though he fidgeted with annoyance, he took a picture with them complete with trademark mocking straightface. By the time David reached him, the people had moved on and he stopped in front of Lee. They quickly hugged, and he felt warm with happiness and he hated that he had to stop himself from staying in that embrace and kissing Lee with all the want that had built up over the past few months.

Lee’s show was nothing more or less than Lee at his best. There was the self-effacing, blue-collar humour that had made their comedies work so perfectly and as he sat in the crowd, bursting with laughter, he ached to add his own milieu to the mix. David missed the banter they had shared with the world. As the show wrapped up, David was out of his seat and winding his way backstage.

David stopped when he saw Lee. It was a rare pensive moment David didn’t want to interrupt. Lee hadn’t seen him yet. He was obviously in that post-show haze of self-reflection and awareness that it had been a great show. There was something else in it too, something that was bothering him. It quickly disappeared when Lee did catch sight of him. Lee lit up when David approached and told him how much he’d enjoyed it. Lee brushed it off, choosing to drag David through the exit and toward his hotel room.

***

David and Lee lay parallel to each other on the hotel bed. The thrumming of satisfaction of getting to wake up to Lee kept David in a delightfully drowsy state. Until his mobile began to ring.

David glanced over and saw his wife’s name on the screen. His gut clenched in guilt, but the thought of not answering never crossed his mind. David talked in clipped sentences to kept the conversation short and Lee disappeared into the bathroom for a moment. He returned and slipped under the sheets again as David hung up with an ‘I love you’. Words that despite the setting still held truth to them.

“Lee,” David said, sitting up at the edge of the bed, phone still in hand, dread and self loathing rearing their hideous heads. “I can’t ‒ I can’t do this. We, can’t do this.”

“In case you missed it, we’ve done this,” Lee said. “Are doing this.”

“I know that,” David said spitefully. “And I want to, but Victoria...Tara, how can we? Don’t you...doesn’t this feel terrible to you? Amazing, but terrible?”

“Is it terrible if I don’t?”

David turned to look at him. “Are you and Tara alright?”

“Would I be here if we were?”

David stop short. He’d never even considered that this was something that they could continue. Something that was real. A real possibility of forever with Lee. Just them, no sneaking around, no wives. He didn’t want that, did he? Things were great with him and Victoria, weren’t they? He’d pined for her, not Lee. This was just...fun?

“Lee, I’m sorry.” David got up, throwing his clothes on and began shoving his clothes into his bag. “I can’t do this. I’m going home.”

Lee was eerily silent and unmoving as David packed up his things and left the hotel room. Several times on his way to the station David almost turned back. David’s train journey back to King’s Cross was tortured and grey. He felt spectacularly ill. For leaving Lee, for betraying Victoria, for being such a cunt to every good person in his life.

Victoria greeted him at the door, asking him how the weather in the north was, and if Lee had had a good show. David had answered each question until he was interrupted by his mobile beeping.

 _I need you_ , David read. He deleted the message despite the ache in his chest.

***

As the crowd at the BAFTA luncheon slowly began to thin out, David was able to slip away from the small circle of acquaintances that had kept him making the rounds after the official pictures had been taken. He’d barely heard a word anyone had said, his eyes constantly scanning the crowd, wanting to avoid Lee, but also needing to be able to see him in order to do so. Every touch on the elbow from behind, or face unhidden from the crowd was potentially the encounter David was so hoping to avoid.

David escaped to the closest exit, and was relieved to find himself in the seclusion of Covent Gardens and not the street where no doubt a line of photographers and journalists would be  
camped out.

David unknotted his tie and slide it off, stuffing it in his pocket.

“You’ll never get the creases outta that.”

David nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice. Lee was leaning against the wall, cigarette in hand, and looking as nonchalant as ever. His gaze was cast to the ground, giving David time to observe what he’d been looking out for all afternoon. He took in the dark grey suit Lee wore, it was more sedate than his usual style, and David found himself appreciating how it fit his now slimmer form. Lee’s hair was more liberally grey now, and though it made him look his age, it suited him.

“It’s just a tie.” David replied lamely.

Lee glanced at him quickly before he flicked the cigarette to the ground and snuffed it out with his shoe.

“Didn’t think you’d show up.” Lee pushed himself off the wall and stood, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I know how much you hate these things.”

David had forgotten just how well Lee knew him. How they could manage to have almost the exact same conversation that he and Victoria had had, even after all these years, made him appreciate the friendship he’d lost.

“You’re looking well, Lee.” David said in earnest. “I didn’t expect you to show up, either.”

“Ah well, you know me, where there’s a free pint to be had...” Lee trailed off.

David fidgeted with his tie in his pocket, and watched the people walking through Covent Gardens. Lee’s self-effacing comedy was something that always made David puzzle over what he was trying to divert attention away from. He even had the silly thought that Lee had only come to see him.

“I guess... I’ll be off then,” David made to walk passed Lee toward Bow Street, but Lee grasped his arm, stopping him from walking away.

“David,” Lee said. David looked at the hand and felt that familiar _something_ reawaken in him. He chanced a glance at Lee’s face and saw his feelings reflected back at him. “Tara left. A year past, now. I told her,” Lee dropped his hand and began to talk hurriedly as if he was sure David was going to start talking over him, or walking away. “About that night, about us. It wasn’t the same after...”

“We were never really the ‘see you around’ type, were we?” David’s voice broke. “It was all or nothing.”

“Nothing,” Lee laughed. “It was never going to be nothing. Not after Newcastle.”

“And if Newcastle was a mistake?”

“Was it?”

“It was five years ago, Lee. What do you expect me to say? That it killed me to have to let you go? Because it did. I got over it. I didn’t even think of you until I saw your name on the stupid invitation to this fucking thing...”

“And now?”

David grabbed him by the lapel and kissed Lee harshly, wantonly, as if he needed it to breathe.

“And now, I can’t stop thinking about you.”


	25. "We can never be together" kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah! That's it, that's the whole thing! Thank you all for hanging in there with us! I can only hope you've enjoyed reading it even a fraction as much as we have enjoyed writing it. Thanks especially to those of you leaving kudos and/or comments, they are deeply appreciated even though we may not always agree with your opinions.
> 
> Darling Sevsgirl72: Thank you for embarking upon this with me, and for agreeing to let me take odds even though most of the properly difficult prompts were evens. I've loved doing this with you <3
> 
> \--
> 
> Chapter rating: G
> 
> Set in early 2012.

Lee had just lit his cigarette when David walked out of the pub, buttoning his coat. Lee smiled at the sight of him. Fuck, he was a goner.

"Heading home so early, are we? Hardly worthy of the winning team captain."

David smiled. "I'm meeting Victoria."

"Ah! In that case, give my best to the lovely Miss Coren and tell her Lee Mack says she can do better for herself."

"I will," David said, laughing. He hesitated for a moment, then: "Bum a fag before I go?"

"Of course."

They smoked in silence for a bit. 

"Good taping tonight," David said finally.

"It was," Lee agreed. 

"Did you really shave your beard for me?"

Lee was torn between amusement that David hadn't let that go and acute embarrassment having to talk about it. He'd mentioned it to the researchers at the start of the series because he figured it might be funny, but he hadn't anticipated it taking quite the turn that it did. 'Caring', 'concerned for David's feelings', and then his own, too-harsh repartee to cover himself.

"Yeah," he said, as lightly as he was able.

"That really was rather sweet of you. I didn't know you cared so much," David teased.

"I do."

Shit. He didn't mean to say that, not so seriously, and he certainly didn’t mean to keep eye contact as he said it. David's eyes widened. Lee didn't know what he'd seen, but he could guess. 

He looked down, but belatedly realised it was ages too late, so he looked back up to get an idea of David's reaction. David looked… Stunned. Sad. Wistful, almost. Certainly not what Lee had expected. 

"I'm sorry," David said. 

"Yeah," Lee said. 

He was trying desperately to think of a joke that could defuse the situation. He had nothing, and so he was stuck, all but shouting out his ridiculous crush. David, in turn, was stumping out his fag and looking around them. Satisfied, apparently, that they were out of view of anyone else, he stepped closer and rested a hand on Lee's shoulder. 

His lips were soft, and so was his beard. He tasted overpoweringly, but not unpleasantly, of beer and tobacco smoke and Lee moved closer, pressing their bodies together. Finally, David pulled back slightly, but didn't open his eyes. 

"That... _really_ would have been something," he said, so close that Lee could feel his lips move against his own. 

"Yeah," he agreed unsteadily.

David let his hand drop, took a step back and opened his eyes. He cleared his throat, his eyes flickering uncertainly. Whatever confidence had possessed him before was gone and nervous, awkward David was back. 

“Right,” he said. “Well, I should go.”

Lee nodded, not quite trusting his voice. He watched David until he turned a corner and disappeared from view.


End file.
